


Giving Needed Comfort

by afteriwake



Series: Stuff Of Improbable Legends [31]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Comfort/Angst, Conversations, Coping, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Molly Hooper/Leonard McCoy, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Inspired by Roleplay/Roleplay Adaptation, Kind Molly, Molly Is Patient, POV Molly Hooper, Past Leonard McCoy/Carol Marcus, Roleplay Logs, Sad McCoy, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, heavy thoughts, loss of a child, poor McCoy, worried Molly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-10
Updated: 2016-03-10
Packaged: 2018-05-25 21:03:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,383
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6210055
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afteriwake/pseuds/afteriwake
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Carol is taken back to her home universe, McCoy begins to pull away from everyone and throw himself into working all the time, and Molly tries to figure out how to best be there for him and help him cope with his losses.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Giving Needed Comfort

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sideofrawr](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sideofrawr/gifts).



> So we just had our monthly roll call in the PSL and our Carol player was dropped, and as **sideofrawr** and I have, like, a million open and unfinished threads, she asked me to write a fic of McCoy's reaction to Carol being taken from Molly's POV for us to use as a log next week. This may be tweaked a little bit when it's posted in the game but will probably stay as is for purposes of the series. Hope you enjoy, hun!

She had spent many years thanks to time travel shenanigans watching forces beyond her control take friends of hers, people she cared for, people she loved. She had comforted people who had lost brothers, sisters, boyfriends, girlfriends, spouses…but this situation was different. She had never been in the position where the person who had been taken had been carrying an unborn child, and she had never been left having to comfort someone that she loved and cared for deeply. Of course, she had never been in the position where she was dating someone who had been in a relationship with someone else and gotten them pregnant and then left them for her, so the whole situation was unusual to _start_ with. But that didn’t make the current situation any easier.

It had been nearly a week since Carol had been taken back. She could see Leonard was distancing himself from everyone, herself included. She could understand that; when Khan had been taken, she had done much the same thing, and she had been dating him at the time. He was spending nearly all his time at the clinic, taking on as much extra work as all of them would allow him to. And they all understood. She and Jemma had been through it many times in Lawrence, and while John hadn’t been through it much before, he seemed to understand. But it didn’t seem to be doing any good. He wasn’t opening up and he was running himself into the ground. She worried about him.

She knew he was at the clinic now. He had said he was going to check the inventory, which was usually her job, and she’d said that was fine. But after a little while she decided to stop by and if nothing else just be there. Maybe work alongside him and be close, just in case he decided to open up. And even if he didn’t, at least he would know she was there if he needed her. She made her way to the clinic from James’s house and parked in her designated spot, getting out and making her way inside. She saw the receptionist there and nodded to her and then made her way to the supply closet. Leonard wasn’t there. Frowning, she went to his office but he wasn’t there, either.

After a moment she decided to act on a hunch and then went to the locked stairwell, pulling out her keys. She unlocked the door and then made her way up. Once she got to the top she opened the door and then went into the transported medbay, unsurprised to see Leonard there, surrounded by boxes and rubbish bags as he sat on the floor, sorting through things. He looked up when he heard her come in. “Molly,” he said quietly.

She gave him a soft smile. “I thought I’d help with inventory, but it looks like you’re done.”

“Jemma did it Monday,” he said with a slight shrug. “I figured I’d start sorting through my things, boxing up the crap I should have tossed when the Enterprise was docked and get it ready to take to the cabin when we get it magically remodeled to however we’re going to get it done so we can start using this place.”

She nodded and came further in. “Well, I can help, if you’d like,” she said.

He shook his head. “It’s okay. I don’t need the help.”

“All right,” she said. He looked through a few more things and put a lot of it in the rubbish bag, and she frowned. She could have sworn it looked as though it might have had to do with Carol. Him being here, doing this…it was probably a bad idea. She moved around the room, looking at the medical equipment, and stopped in front of something that looked like a mounted laser used for surgery. “Leonard, what does this do?”

He looked up, turning his body to look at what she was looking at. “Ionic laser for microsurgery,” he said.

“How does it work?” she asked.

He stared at her, and then moved the things he had on his lap off and then stood up, coming over to her. He got close to her and reached over to point at the controls, and then stopped. “You’re trying to distract me,” he said shrewdly.

“Yeah, she said, a bit hesitantly. “I…I’m worried. You don’t need to talk about it, about her, I promise, but I just don’t think you doing _this_ , going through your things, is a good idea, that’s all. We can go downstairs and double check Jemma’s counts if you want. I just don’t want you to chuck something that you’ll regret later, that’s all.”

He moved his hand from hovering over the control panel to grasp hers, and then moved away to lead her out of the medbay area. She knew that when she had made her wish his whole apartment from San Francisco had appeared next to the medbay, and he went over and opened the door. She was just thankful the door had arrived unlocked. He opened the door and then led her inside and eventually led her to his bedroom. She had only come into the apartment far enough to see if everything had arrived intact and so she hadn’t gotten to look around. When they got in there he led her to the bed and they sat down on the edge of it. “I spent more time with her on the Enterprise,” he said. “So most of my memories with her from home are all mixed together out there in the medbay. Here, there aren’t so many, and none in this room.”

She nodded, reaching over and grasping his hand. “So it might be easier to talk?” she asked.

“Yeah,” he said, running his thumb over her knuckles. He looked down at their hands. “I don’t really know how I feel about all of this. It’s complicated. I’m sad she’s gone. She was my friend, even after everything. And…she was having my kid. And I’m angry, too. But I’m also relieved, I guess. I worried a lot about how things would go with her having to watch us together, about how that would go. I felt guilty about that. And now she’s gone and I don’t have to worry about that. And part of me feels like crap for that.”

“Oh, Leonard,” she said, feeling her heart break slightly. He’d been feeling such a heavy burden and shouldering it all alone. She pulled her hand away and caressed his face. “I’m so sorry.”

“And then I think about the baby,” he said quietly. “I know back in Lawrence that everyone said that when you went back it was like you never left. And if it’s the same way here then…that means the baby’s gone. I lost her before she was ever born. And I know we have kids, Kenzi’s more or less let the cat out of the bag, but that’s…that’s a kid I would have had that I’ll never have now. Never even have the chance. And I don’t want to think about it so I just push myself to work and just try and drive myself into exhaustion. And I push everyone away because I know people want to talk and try and make me feel better and I just want to forget.”

She moved closer, wanting to just pull him close and hold him and kiss him and help him forget. Damn it, she wished now she hadn’t used up all her wishes. She wanted nothing more than to ease his heart. “What do you need?” she asked, running her thumbs along his cheekbones.

“I don’t know,” he said with a slight shrug. “I just…distraction, maybe?”

She nodded, leaning in more. “I can do that,” she said, brushing her lips against his softly. After a moment he pulled her closer, kissing her again, and she let him take the lead as he pulled her onto his lap. She would give him whatever he needed tonight and every night until he told her he was all right again, because she loved him and she had finally figured out that that was what he needed.


End file.
